Causal Judgment Research Under The Condition Of One Result-Two Causes

Causal judgment is a judgment people would always encounter in their daily life. When people quest for reason for a particular event, they would always suppose one or more reasons. Hence, they would have to judge, among all the possible reasons, which one is more likely to cause the event. Superstitions are the result of false causal judgment to some contingent events. So, the research on causal judgment can both contribute greatly to theoretical development and practice.Through the three experiments which directly manifest the frequencies of each cause and effect type, the present research examines the factors affecting causal judgment under the condition of one result-two causes; and verifies the probabilistic contrast model, the power PC theory, Causal Model Theory and the formula X×P(A)+Y×P(B)=P(AB), which is presented by the presented research.ExperimentⅠtakes the abstractness of different combination and change of reasons as the independent variable, examines the influence from the differentiation of facilitation condition, familiarity of reasons and abstractness of the issue respectively over people's causal judgment, and explores the causal judgment factors under the condition of one result-two causes. ExperimentⅡ, a design of single variable participant is to test the probabilistic contrast model, the power PC theory and the hypothesis of the study by way of changing the covariation of the cause and effect. ExperimentⅢis to test the hypothetical formula of this study through changing the combination of different validity and Covariation and to further investigate some factors and characteristics of the judgment of cause and effect under the circumstances of one single effect with two causes.The results of this study are as follows:(1) The factors influencing the judgment of cause and effect include the causes which are the causes of the matter or the ones which are the contributors, the level of familiarity with the causes, and the level of covariance of the causes and effects, while the first and the last have salient influences on causal judgment, particularly the last.(2) The probabilistic contrast model, the power PC theory and the Causal Model Theory is applied in many cases under the circumstances of one single effect with two causes, while the hypothesis of this study can be utilized in most cases and it can account for why two causes can result in the same rate separately with different values of judgment, even thought it can not explain all the results of the experiments.(3) Covariantion and beliefs can influence the causal judgment. Compared with the extant causal judgment, the hypothesis of this study not only takes the influences from the judgment of covariantion into consideration, but also includes the influences from the causes.(4) The process of causal judgment is prone to many factors, especially the situation of one single effect with two causes, and the internal mechanism of causal judgment is extremely complicated, which deserves further investigations.